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Saira Banu says Madhubala was ‘interested’ in Dilip Kumar, recalls the ‘fiasco’ that happened at Mughal-e-Azam premiere: ‘Cascaded with cold water’

Saira Banu shared that she dressed up in her finest clothes for the premiere of Mughal-e-Azam but she was left disappointed. She accepts that from a young age, she dreamt of becoming Mrs Dilip Kumar.

Saira Banu (left) dressed in her finest for Mughal-e-Azam premiere starring Dilip Kumar and Madhubala.

From a very young age, Saira Banu was a huge fan of Dilip Kumar so when she got to know that ‘Sahib’, as she fondly calls him, would be present for the premiere of K Asif’s magnum opus Mughal-e-Azam, Saira made it her mission to look her best. In a few posts shared on her social media handle, Saira looked back on those days when she groomed for six days so she could look her best at the premiere party of the film.

Saira, in a new post, shared that she convinced her mother to lend her a traditional gota saree which actually weighed a ton. “But do you think I would give up? I draped it up with my mother’s help and very bravely weathered the storm of swaying when I walked side-to-side with the heavy fabric,” she wrote. She then said that “mind boggling beauteous” Madhubala was “interested in Sahib but do you think that anything could deter me from my Dream of becoming Mrs Dilip Kumar?”

But, Saira was disappointed when Dilip Kumar did not show up at the premiere on August 5, 1960 at Mumbai’s Maratha Mandir theatre. “The moment when I would exchange a glance with him went waste and I felt cascaded with cold water,” she wrote and called this episode a “fiasco”. Saira shared Dilip was quite hurt by K Asif as the director had “secretly married” Dilip’s younger sister without informing him.

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A post shared by Saira Banu Khan (@sairabanu)

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Saira said that because of “these averse events” Dilip never watched Mughal-e-Azam. Many years after their marriage, Dilip and Saira once visited FTII and this was when Dilip first watched the movie. She wrote, “It was a charming experience wherein the students all gathered around Sahib and the institute’s notables were honoured to receive Dilip Sahab and to keep and maintain his films which were screened repeatedly to those who were studying at the Institute. I jumped with delight as soon as I got to know that they held Mughal-e-Azam as a lesson in drama. I requested them to screen Mughal-e-Azam and became instrumental in showing Mughal-e-Azam to Sahib for the very first time. What an honour!”

Dilip Kumar passed away in 2021. Mughal-e-Azam is still remembered as one of his best films.

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